I want to focus more on health degeneration, but i feel i'd have a hard time with casters. Echo might be better than Archane Echo, but its an elite skill too and i want to keep Offering of Blood. Any help on how to improve would be appreciated, thank you.

Saikyo

06-06-2005, 23:58

I want to focus more on health degeneration, but i feel i'd have a hard time with casters. Echo might be better than Archane Echo, but its an elite skill too and i want to keep Offering of Blood. Any help on how to improve would be appreciated, thank you.

If you want to focus on health degeneration then you ARE going to have a hard time with casters. If this is a PvP build then it's probably okay as long as you have someone else on your team to deal with the casters.

The way the game is set up, you can't be good at everything at the same time. I'd recommend figuring out what you want to be good at (health degen or anti-caster) and stick with that.

If you are dead set on doing both though, then you'll want to take along some domination magic since it is the main anti-caster branch for mesmers.

As for your build I think it looks alright (but it does lean towards anti-melee). If you want even MORE degen then try taking along Life Transfer (elite) as it gives a larger degen than Life Siphon.

Tsume

07-06-2005, 09:13

Saiko I sense you are confused about the usefulness of health degeneration.

Health Degen itself is equally effective against casters and mellee opponents. That is to say 10 degen is 10 degen.

Saying its more effective on Warriors than it is on say a Mesmer is like saying a pound of lead weighs more than a pound of feathers.

If anything, the last target degen should be applied to is a Ranger as they have Troll Unguent to neutralize degen. Healers typically cast Healing Breeze on any target that has a lot of degen on him, to neutralize it as well. That Breeze is also equally effective at combating degen, whether its on a caster or warrior. The reason Rangers should be a lesser target is becuase of Unguent and Breeze stacking.

As far as Anti Caster degen goes, stacking degen up to 10-11 with Migraine, Conjure and whatever else you desire works very well to both hinder their casting and drain them of their health. Casters which have a slow cast spell on them, and others stacked ontop of it cant remove the slow cast and often feel vulnerable to interrupts, and will stick only to their faster casting skills. You dont even have to have an interrupt neccesarily, but eventually they would realize your farce and cast through the added cast duration.

I wouldnt advise Arcane Echo, as several of your skills are quickly recharged anyhow, mainly Life Siphon and Conjure Phantasm.

Spam Life Siphon on atleast 2 different targets to give yourself 6 regen. Keep up atleast two Life Siphons at all times as possible. Pick a Primary target and press 'target next' to cast a siphon. Hit target previous to switch back to your Primary Target and then use a skill like Conjure followed by Siphon on him/her as well. Without Life Transfer on a Blood Magic build, its important to keep up some regen as you are a caster, and will be prone to attack.

Welcome to the forums SatanzChiken.

Saikyo

08-06-2005, 00:20

Saiko I sense you are confused about the usefulness of health degeneration.

Health Degen itself is equally effective against casters and mellee opponents. That is to say 10 degen is 10 degen.

Saying its more effective on Warriors than it is on say a Mesmer is like saying a pound of lead weighs more than a pound of feathers.

Sorry, what I was trying to say was that if you take along a lot of health degen skills, you won't be able to take more of the caster-disabling skills like Backfire, Diversion, Shame, etc.

Additionally since warriors have better armor I was trying to say that degen is a more useful form of damage since they would take less from physical. Another example is using Deathly Swarm on a Ranger being less effective then just degening him since he has resistance to cold. So using degen on figher classes usually better than hitting them whereas on a caster you can also do efficent damage by just hittting them.

(Though after some thinking I remembered that all mesmer damage is chaos damage anyways, so as long as you are using mesmer skills it doesn't matter.)